Cambridge Audio CXN Recent Firmware Upgrade Issues

mikeo

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HI

Just an information post as it looks like I am now running OK, but have other people seen the same issue ?

I purchased a Cambrdige Audio CXN last week , almost immediately there was a Firmware Upgrade. Not knowing if this was a recent upgrade or pending one since the actual unit was boxed up for transit , I applied the firmware patch.

My plan was to run the CXN solely with a local USB HDD source (Seagate 2Tb Desktop Expansion) with no NAS or media server etc. I downloaded the Cambridge Connect App for my iPad Mini. My first impressions were good, with one reservation that using local USB there was no album art support, thinking c'est la vie I carried on (Incidentally DLNA shows album art). The unit worked as advertised. My plan was to run 100% with a iPad App.

When I applied the firmware upgrade wow the album art started to show BUT the unit stopped working on USB.

The symptoms were that at any USB selection changes it was sluggish or simply hung, eventually the unit would go through a complete restart , detecting network etc in most cases it never got to the stage of selecting a music track to play , if it did the restart stopped any music playing. Using the Remote Control or the units Control Knob were fine but not the iPad App.

My set up is an ADSL router with a Net Gear wi fi range extender to boost Wi Fi into the listening room and I intended all network by Wi Fi.

I have a copy of all my music on my desktop and I used JRiver Media Centre as a DLNA server and connected up and all ran perfectly but that was not the way I want to run and not as specified to the dealer I bought the unit from

A long story short on day 10 (I had 1 day of actual use before the problem arose) I eventually got a visit from our local agent with a replacement unit just in case and we tried every permutation of network positions on the Wi Fi System, eventually we put the range extender very close to the unit and ran a LAN cable to it. We came to the conclusion that the upgrade demanded more data transfer than the previous set up and as such has rendered the CXN unusable by Wi Fi. I have now positioned the range extender permanently on the rear of the Hi Fi cabinet and run a LAN Cable and all appears well ( at least I have had one evening of reasonable listening)

Originally I put a support call onto Cambridge Audio's site and the only response so far has been to ask for the build details of the Firmware. Top marks to the local guys , NO MARKS for CA after 8 days even after a few prods !!

Cambridge Audio don't seem too interested in my plight , except for the local guy, but surely they must address this issue, they are advertising a unit that can run hard wired LAN or Wi Fi when now there most recent upgrade has rendered this (in my case at least) impractical.

Whilst I appreciate running a network system is more reliable by hard wire it doesn't alter that fact we are living in a wireless world and the unit "advertises" its Wi Fi capability. Quite simply the geography of my house does not easily lend itslef to running network cables. I have been running multiples of PC's, tablets etc using my internal Wi Fi for years with any issues so why now ....

The jury is still out on whether I simply give up on Cambridge Audio and demand a refund ( I am very tempted )!!

Mike
 

dap33

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mikeo said:
HI

Just an information post as it looks like I am now running OK, but have other people seen the same issue ?

I purchased a Cambrdige Audio CXN last week , almost immediately there was a Firmware Upgrade. Not knowing if this was a recent upgrade or pending one since the actual unit was boxed up for transit , I applied the firmware patch.

My plan was to run the CXN solely with a local USB HDD source (Seagate 2Tb Desktop Expansion) with no NAS or media server etc. I downloaded the Cambridge Connect App for my iPad Mini. My first impressions were good, with one reservation that using local USB there was no album art support, thinking c'est la vie I carried on (Incidentally DLNA shows album art). The unit worked as advertised. My plan was to run 100% with a iPad App.

When I applied the firmware upgrade wow the album art started to show BUT the unit stopped working on USB.

The symptoms were that at any USB selection changes it was sluggish or simply hung, eventually the unit would go through a complete restart , detecting network etc in most cases it never got to the stage of selecting a music track to play , if it did the restart stopped any music playing. Using the Remote Control or the units Control Knob were fine but not the iPad App.

My set up is an ADSL router with a Net Gear wi fi range extender to boost Wi Fi into the listening room and I intended all network by Wi Fi.

I have a copy of all my music on my desktop and I used JRiver Media Centre as a DLNA server and connected up and all ran perfectly but that was not the way I want to run and not as specified to the dealer I bought the unit from

A long story short on day 10 (I had 1 day of actual use before the problem arose) I eventually got a visit from our local agent with a replacement unit just in case and we tried every permutation of network positions on the Wi Fi System, eventually we put the range extender very close to the unit and ran a LAN cable to it. We came to the conclusion that the upgrade demanded more data transfer than the previous set up and as such has rendered the CXN unusable by Wi Fi. I have now positioned the range extender permanently on the rear of the Hi Fi cabinet and run a LAN Cable and all appears well ( at least I have had one evening of reasonable listening)

Originally I put a support call onto Cambridge Audio's site and the only response so far has been to ask for the build details of the Firmware. Top marks to the local guys , NO MARKS for CA after 8 days even after a few prods !!

Cambridge Audio don't seem too interested in my plight , except for the local guy, but surely they must address this issue, they are advertising a unit that can run hard wired LAN or Wi Fi when now there most recent upgrade has rendered this (in my case at least) impractical.

Whilst I appreciate running a network system is more reliable by hard wire it doesn't alter that fact we are living in a wireless world and the unit "advertises" its Wi Fi capability. Quite simply the geography of my house does not easily lend itslef to running network cables. I have been running multiples of PC's, tablets etc using my internal Wi Fi for years with any issues so why now ....

The jury is still out on whether I simply give up on Cambridge Audio and demand a refund ( I am very tempted )!!

Mike

hows the cxn performing know mike? was looking at the cxn and had planned to use it with an external portable 1tb harddrive via usb like yourself
 

Stevie9

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Mike,
How's it going ? I'm 4 weeks away from getting a cxn. I will probably use it via a cable so these issues don't concern me but just checking in with you.
 

mikeo

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Hi Steve

Sorry I missed you ealier post .

The CXN is now behaving itself as long as its on a wired network connection. The device sees a 2Tb powered drive with no issues and after the firmware upgrade the album art is working too on the iPad app. It would seem that the best approach is a folder per album then it sees aither Folder.jpg in the folder or the hidden system file folder.jpg.

For interest to speed up access , I have set up my folders with alphabetical sub folders ie Root>Rock> A..Z > Artist> Album or Root>Classical>Composer>Artist>Album and that works fine. Out of interest for double albums I have set the Track No part of the file name to 101, 201 etc and the iPad app sees this and shows the discs in order and truncates the 101 to 1 . I think it must be reading Tags off the files.

In terms of sound quality its superb. The DAC is the DAC Magic Plus(I am pretty sure) which was always a good one . I am using it via an analogue input to my AV amp and its sounds good. As I mentioned I have an M-DAC which is now used as a headphone amp and that performs well so presumably the co-ax output is passing a good signal to the second DAC

All in all it does exactly what I wanted to, it was a bit of a sticky start and I would still like it resolved so that Wi Fi works but it is a good bit of Hi Fi kit and I now happy I bought it.

Mike
 

iQ Speakers

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Mine stopped working with Spotifiy but i had electricians in who disconected everthing. Evidently it was an issue with Spotify. Anyway hopeing to upgrade it to the 851n soon for demos as its my only source, great sounding unit though.
 

mikeo

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Hi

Just an update , CA worked tirelessly on this issue , praise where its due.

The upshot is that the CXN works fine when it has a hard wire connection to a LAN, but it still has an issue with a totally wireless set up. CA are working on this and it seems to be a limitation of the current Wi Fi dongle from what I am hearing.

They are investigating a new dongle and it looks like I will get one as a trial sometime soon.

Until then the CXN performs perfectly with the LAN cable album art and all. My problem still remains that the Wi Fi Extender I use is now effctively dedicated to the CXN and has little Wi Fi range elsewhere primarily due to where it has to be situtated to have the LAN Cable to the CXN

More news when I get it

MIke
 

Camusnicole

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I acquire a CNX few month ago connected to an old B&O and I am using JRiver on a Suface Pro 3.

I had a lot of WiFi problems. First i suspected interferance. i tried to direct the CNX to the 5Ghz bandwith on my rooter to find out from CA that it was only to be use on 2.5GHZ. I gave it a high priority but I was still loosing the signal.

So in the middle of the night I had a flash, I took the Apple Airport Express that I had bought few years ago to play music via Airplay on my B&O and I use a Ethernet cable from the Airport Express to the CA CNX. I unpluged the WiFi dongle cause for some reason when I turn the CNX on it tries to connect on the WiFi network . My AirPort Express uses the 5Ghz network. I did all that intuitively.

Now the signal seems much more stable. I still have problems when using JRiver either on the remote on my Ipad or from the Surface Pro, I guess these are JRiver MC issues for which I need a better expertise if someone can direct me to a good forum to find answers I appreciate.

Thanks

Niki
 

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